What did I learn at the conference?

Note: WP = WordPress; CMS = content management system;
Most of the links lead to Romanian pages, sorry about that;

Day 1 (see the pictures I made for day 1)

Nikolay BACHIYSKI: News about WP
(video I made) (see his presentation online)
- words to describe WP: power, freedom, confusion, income, ladies, gentlemen;
- WP is more of a cultural thing, rather than a software thing;
- WP project started due to sharing;
- WP has a GPL (General Public License);
- sharing has become an integral part of WP community;
- there was a community pressure on WP;
- everyone can make a piece of software, but it is the sharing of contributors that gives WP power;
- Wordcamps are an excellent method of sharing knowledge;
- through sharing, even if you give some of your time away, you will learn more things; you may even give yourself a bigger gift than to others;

On WP MU:
- MU = Multi User;
- for blog hosting
- totally open source;

BuddyPress – a social network in a box;

bbPress – forums in WP style;

Backpress – management of software projects (web based);

P2 – when you write something on the blog, it appears in real time (instant blogging);

WP 2.9:
- will allow moving to trash (instead of instant and permanent deleting);
- in the future:
a. better documentation (hand books);
b. photo albums;
c. will try to be a good framework for more development of features;

Lorand MINYO: Hosting for blogs
(video I made) (and another video) (see his presentation online)
- Orădeanul (the blogger from Oradea) should have held this presentation;
- Webfactor hosts a lot of blogs, even some from Top 10 ZeList;
- WP is of great help to hosting providers;
- Cabral shared his user and password in public;
- a lot of people hacked his blog;
- WP is scalable;
- are there problems with updating WP? Solution: the hosting provider should do the update;
- for very popular bloggers there are problems on things such as: hacking, flooding (database interrogations);
- one year ago, less than 1% of web sites used WP as a CMS, now it’s about 40%; most surprisingly – this applies not only to individuals, but to companies (using WP as a CMS);
- what do bloggers want: uptime, performance, scalability, low costs; yes, all four in the same time would be great;
- you shouldn’t use poor plugins;
- you should update WP CMS as soon as possible;
- avoid using WP hacks;
- types of hosting:
a. shared hosting;
b. VPS;
c. dedicated hosting;
- caching data? Perfect solution;

Alexandru NEGREA: How to choose a WP theme?
(video I made) (see his presentation online) (see the author’s thoughts on the event)
- there are a few types of themes:
a. Free themes;
b. Paid themes, but with author rights (links in footer, for example);
c. Paid themes, made exclusively for one blog (no links in footer) – not recommended if you don’t blog professionally;
- for the free themes:
a. there is not a readme.txt (how do I change a picture in the theme?);
b. free themes? Not recommended by Alexandru NEGREA;
c. You usually can’t find a perfect theme;
- today’s free themes are not really that good (design, programming, support);
- premium themes with author rights (links in footer) are an excellent option for users;
- recommended web site: ElegantThemes.com;
- any blogger should have a PayPal account;
- TemplateMonster.com has great options for buying themes: unique themes (expensive) and generic themes (much cheaper);
- the classical WP theme has no appeal;
- do you have a niche blog? You need a clear visual identity;
- own a personal blog? Your blog needs personality / identity;
- a paid theme has a better structure of information;
- green and orange, used for communication purposes, are very effective colors; (they suggest a call-to-action)
- SmashingMagazine.com – great place to look for themes;
- on a side note, don’t search on Google, it tends to provide results which lack value added; Solution? Search on Twitter;
- Alex BUGA sold his blog theme to a museum; the best WP theme in Romania?
- it’s perfectly fine to start designing a theme from the default theme;
- there is a WP plugin that makes a WP theme look great on mobile phones, also;

Andrei ROŞCA: Team blogging
(video I made) (see his presentation online) (his own blog post on the presentation)
- you should take community very seriously;
- team blogs and niche blogs may be more valuable than a personal weblog;
- this is a great world (nice blogs and Web 2.0 are based on this) – but all these require a community:
a. open society;
b. unrestricted access to knowledge;
c. unplanned and uninhibited association of men for its furtherance;
- in order to make money from blogging, you have to have good quality publishing;
- it will be very hard to make money from a blog if you’re alone;
- there is a book exchange initiated by BookBlog in a lot of counties;
- from many perspectives, an online business is similar to an offline one;
- what would the value of BookBlog be? A blog with a similar content, with no team, with no board, could cost from 80,000 EUR;
- the price for a paid book review on BookBlog is 80 RON (this is the amount authors receive);
- types of incomes for BookBlog:
a. advertorials;
b. RSS advertising;
c. banners;
d. paid book reviews;
- (gotta love this) efficiency means doing things with a good result (good performance), while efficacy means doing the right things;
- you shouldn’t tell your team about money; it’s all about goals, and values, and dreams and future;
- it’s great to have offline meetings for online teams; you can’t force people to be friends, you can only provide a context;

Cristina ANDREI: SEO vs. Copywriting
(see her presentation online)
- normally, you shouldn’t have to pick between SEO or copywriting, they should coexist;
- copywriting is a persuasive text (used not only for banners and ads) that should convince readers to read the text (i.) and forward it (ii.);
- in the Romanian blogosphere there are some misconceptions:
a. Keyword stuffing (in titles, meta description, h1, ALT, link title) is fine;
b. Link exchange;
c. SPAM comments;
- you should comment on blogs with relevant ideas, rather than spamming with comments;
- how to promote a blog post? Twitter, ProBlogger, FTW;
- recommended plugin: All in One SEO pack;

Costin COCIOABĂ: Niche blogs
(video I made) (see his presentation online) (thoughts on this)
- journalists, TV stars, singers, even responsibility actions – they are the ones with the most traffic on ZeList;
- magazine styles WP themes – make a blog similar to a big publisher;
- a niche blog can attract the right audience;
- when you have a blog, you’re actually a publisher;
- in Romania there are not good niche blogs: auto, finance, etc.;
- tips on making money out of a blog: RSS advertising and affiliate marketing;
- if you want to become a successful publisher, you have to be informed;
- niche blogging require permanent testing;
- there was no plan behind refresh.ro;
- main communication theme for refersh.ro – objective communication;
- you should use tags on your blog – mostly for people and actions;
- motivations based on money are not that important;

Day 2 (see the pictures I made for day 2)

WP Themes
Pavel CIORICI
(video I made) (see his presentation online)
- I can’t work 10 hours a day for a theme, so in two weeks time I can do a WP theme for scratch;
- there is an open forum with help for themes; We answer 2-3 times per day to the topics;
- the reason our themes are bought is mostly customer support, but also the unique design (the theme won’t be common on other web sites) and functionality;
- IE (Internet Explorer) 6 has some rendering problems with themes;
- we offer 25% commission to our affiliates; there are 300+ other blogs that mention our new themes; the affiliate system is very good for us;

Alexandru NEGREA
(video I made) (see the author’s thoughts on the event)
- it’s a great thing to be able to live out of selling themes;
- freelancing may be a good method of doing things;

Răzvan TÎRBOACĂ
(video I made) (author thoughts)
- Strategic web site needed a CMS;
- we tested Drupal, Joomla! and WP as CMS; WP was best;
- the main requirement was ease of use to non-technical users; this should also be the USP (Unique Selling Proposition) of WP in front of other CMS;
- clients need specific solutions from WP, and this is the thing you should sell;
- WP is free and it’s not fair to ask for money for it; Instead, custom services are great;
- you should sell WP as a CMS, rather than as a blog;
- case studies are great solution when selling something;
- you should use tags a lot;
- web site architecture should be incorporated into design, rather than programming;
- a web 2.0 approach – using tools from other providers;
- rather than selling WP installing (done easily), you should sell custom themes and programming;
- put some emphasis on hosting and security;
- when asked for supplemental security, you should require an extra payment and provide hosting with firewall, for example;
- on a side note, it may be fine to start a company in Cyprus, due to fiscal laws in that state;

WP Development & Plugins
Cristi BURCĂ
(video I made) (see his presentation online) (thoughts)
- taxonomy is a way of classifying things (both blog posts and blog pages); it refers to making some compartments for easy finding of information later on;
- in WP there are two types of predefined taxonomies: categories and tags;
- in WP you can have multiple set of tags;
- for advanced use of WP as CMS you can use advanced taxonomies; there are plugins dedicated to that;
- the permalinks look great on taxonomies;
- taxonomies are nicely stored in WP database;

Dan ŞTEFANCU
(video I made) (idea 1 , idea 2)
- custom fields are not that complicated;
- custom fields are neither tags nor categories;
- instead they are additional fields used for adding extra information;
- for a real estate web site, you can add custom fields with information about each property;
- you can adapt the WP dashboard to use your very own custom fields;
- custom fields are easy to use, a lot of them can be added to any post, they are store in a personalized way, they can be shown everywhere (even in feeds);

Alex MIHĂILEANU
(video I made) (see his presentation online) (his own message on the blog)
- you should give your themes an easy design and coding;
- coding things in a good manner right from the start means less work later on;
- less plugins? Great! Lesser server load;
- Piticu has a slow server due to a widget in the sidebar;
- you can edit the plugins to get only the code you need it;
- WP is so easy, anyone could learn how to use it;

Ciprian TURCU
(video I made) (see his presentation online) (blog message)
- WP recently hit 50 million downloads recently;
- WP is an extraordinary environment for designing web sites;
- if you have knowledge with PHP, MySQL, CSS, HTML, you will have an easy life with WP;
- when designing plugins, there are ways to call already written functions (hooks) for a lot of things;
- there are a lot of plugins only compatible with early versions of WP – this is a problem, but also an opportunity (you can do an updated version of an old plugin);
- when working at a plugin, you should take into account name functions – giving original names for functions (FTest48Original3name), rather than generic ones (FunctionName) would help prevent compatibility problems;
- there might be version problems with other plugins or with WP;
- a lot of plugins might encounter problems with design – there are differences in the CSS of the blogs, sidebar width, things of this sort;
- there is little feed-back to plugins – why someone uses a plugin? It’s not that easy to register at WP, creating an account, posting a question; you can’t post anonymous comments and feed-back;

Călin DON: WP MU
(video I made) (see his presentation online) (see more about Călin DON) (see a blog post on this)
- initial server configuration (1+ year old) held 10 active blogs: 196 MB RAM, Apache server, PHP Fast CGI configured;
- current configuration includes 1.2 GB of RAM, nginx, PHP FPM;
- the current configuration requires few RAM (8 MB of RAM can process 1.000 queries);
- some requests can be processed via a caching system;
- you can send files in accelerated method (they are sent automated by the web server);
- PHP FPM (PHP’s Fascia) works as an application server (you can separate the web server from WP); it allows running process with different rights (per blog for instance);
- we try to fully use the system resources of the server;
- recommended plugin: WP Super Cache; you can run up to 30 times more requests from the server;
- we also use APC;
- we started the blogging platform as one made for our friends; when the user count become too large, we installed WP MU;
- our current version, we have a svn-core (for WP installation), svn-plugins (WP plugins), svn-mu-plugins (plugins specific for WP MU), svn-themes (the themes users can pick);

Managers blogs
Mircea SCĂRLĂTESCU
(video I made) (see his presentation online) (thoughts 1 & thoughts 2)
- in 2006 I started reading some blogs I liked; I liked Zoso’s blog; I had only a few posts;
- in 2007 I started writing more for the business area;
- June 1^st 2007 gives the first link from Orlando NICOARA;
- on August 1^st 2007 I got on a first fight with Zoso;
- today I have a big influence, and not that great traffic;
- I earned no money from blogging;
- personal branding might be a very good reason to start a blog; it’s one good reason to start a blog;
- most of the money in blogging will come from the networking starting from the blogging;
- it’s very cheap to get press coverage via a blog that has a good readership;
- you can easily be taken into account by important players in the online world;
- blogs can make relations between humans more personal;
- competition will also take a look on your blog;

Bogdan Theodor OLTEANU
(video I made) (see his presentation online) (blog post)
- why blog?
a. experimenting social media
b. know online people;
c. learn communication techniques;
d. an extend pool for recruiting;
- in PR (Public Relations) it is important to have a good team;
- choosing WP as a blogging platform was the decision of an IT person;
- via social media you can transmit information about the company team, team culture and managing style;
- thousand of potential employees have social media accounts; you can see a person’s behavior online;
- in five years time, PR might move online;
- there is no such thing as total sincerity, neither online nor offline;
- if you are realist, you realize there are masks that people wear;
- especially multinational companies use social media, mostly due to an overall direction given by mother companies;

Radu GEORGESCU
(video I made)
- Adriana IORDAN said that there are things to be said on a blog; they belong neither in a personal blog, nor in a company blog;
- in Romania it would be useful to have a community of IP (Intellectual Property);
- IP is a business with exponential growth, compared to the invested resources;
- in software development, internet dot com portals, social media – after an initial investment, it is very easy to grow;
- in Romania there are three examples of successful companies which are frequently provided: BitDefender, Softpedia, GeCad; but the list is much longer;
- online advertising in Romania? It had a premature death, perhaps it even didn’t start;
- ideally, you should find another way of monetizing the blog, rather than by advertising;
- blog to read: Marriott on the Move – Bill Marriott‘s Blog;

Company blogs
Silviu TOMA
(video I made)
- you can’t really tell what would be people’s reaction prior to launching a blog;
- a good approach to negative comments would be solving the presented issues;
- it would be useful for a whole team to be present on a company blog;
- campaign – “Write something so that you will receive a book”; main idea – promote Nemira’s values; the campaign helped raising awareness of the blog; in 3 months a community of both commentators and bloggers was created;
- prior to starting a blog, you should create a good atmosphere in the company regarding blogging itself;

Daniela DUMITRICĂ
- Paralela 45 worked hard for a new blog;

Adriana IORDAN
(video I made)
- how can you attract with your marketing campaigns the trust of some companies? Tricky question; Another one: how can you promote the implementation of an IT solution in a company?
- Avangate offers software vendors an eCommerce platform;
- GECAD ePayment is an online payment solution;
- on the international market there was a lot of competition;
- how to promote a business solution? Become an expert in your niche; the expertise of someone can be easily spotted;
- we did some SEO for keywords;
- our focus was content marketing;
- we identified online communities that could help promoting our business;
- after a good online presence, we found good ideas about some blog articles to create;
- cool blog: MyAdobe; Also Balsamiq Blog;

Other readings

About this event others have written:
Dupa bloguri, Ziua Constanta, Mihai IRINEL, Cod Rosu, Chinezu, Auras MIHAI, Lamaie, Sorin RUSI (+1), me, w2 (+1), Stiri IT, Marius TUDOSE, Razvan CRANGANU.
Also, see the Twitter page of the event and a Twitter hashtag.

About the event itself – feed-back to the organizers

What I liked about the event?
Wordcamp Romania had good speakers, nice room for the event, plenty of participants.

What would I do better next year?
Longer days, better presentation systems.

Who were the top speakers?
1. I liked a lot Adriana IORDAN’s speech; Imagine hearing a person talking on SEO (search engine optimization) using white hat techniques, natural growth, all that on a large company; With results, a good case study, funny speech; About this speech – content (of the speech) was king;
2. I also like Costin COCIOABĂ’s speech; Funny, straight to the point, with key facts and real life examples; Very entertaining, he went for some raise of hands; About this speech – a lot of courage;
3. 3^rd place is shared equally by Radu GEORGESCU, with good good and valuable information, and Andrei ROŞCA, with a very pleasant to see speech and in the same time good content.

Would I recommend you to participate next year?
Yes, Wordcamp Romania was a very nice event overall.

Day 1
Pictures at the event:

Videos from day 1: Vasile PAUN, Titi Zen clown.

What did I learn?
1. You should become aware of the heights you can fly to;
2. Questions to put to yourself:
a. Who are you?
b. Do you know the signs that show you the path?
c. What do I choose to be?
3. “To choose” – the biggest conviction one can have;
4. It takes from 21 to 28 days to transform an action into a habbit;
5. You should start with physical habits, they are easier to reinforce;
6. We are now living in a material area; We should switch from:
a. “To have” – material state;
b. “To do”- do something for a.; and again switch to:
c. “To be” – happiness;
Going from c. to a. might be the wise choice;
7. Target: manage to focus only on breathing for 49 minutes;
8. Two people who say the same thing:
a. One is happy and fulfilled;
b. The other is unsatisfied;
9. A person best learns from sufference and wise;
10. I am inferior to nobody else, and nobody else is inferior to me;

But the speaker of the day was, to me, a clown – Titi Zen clown, as he calls himself. He was the special guest of the first day. Here’s what I liked so much about him:
1. He said this – When you find out who you are, you can redefine yourself constantly;
2. He had the courage to break the rules:
a. Social norms – Besides dressing atypically, he said tough things, he argued; Besides making people laugh, he put himself into awkward situations; He always left me the impression that if one needs a bit of an impulse to do one thing, he could have done it easily; He could have gone in the scene, even if no one else did this;
b. Behavior norms – He ate an apple from a decorative basket of fruits (those could have been unwashed fruits; He still ate the apple); He said on one table with the risk of falling.

I liked Titi Zen clown a lot, and do hope I’ll see him again sometimes.

Day 2
Pictures from day 2:

Videos from day 2:
Vasile PAUN #1, Vasile PAUN #2, Elena IGNAT #1, Elena IGNAT #2, Elena IGNAT #3.

What did I learn?
1. The path for change: You find out something new, you believe in it, you apply it;
2. You should accept everything the way it is;
3. There are three types of intelligence:
a. Physical;
b. Mental;
c. Emotional;
3. You should know your emotions and you should feel the emotions of the person you talk to;

Elena IGNAT (Razara):
1. How can you become a victim when you have with you information from all the Universe?
2. If you wish to, you can become the center of the Universe in one second;
3. One person can change nations;
4. Being surprised gives one an increased conscience; Being angry lowers the conscience;

From day 2, I liked Elena IGNAT’s ability to speak. She had lots of passion, good enthusiasm and she provided the room with energy.

Event organization – Regarding the event itself, I can say:
1. It was lots of fun, we got to dance, there were some exercises, and all-in-all a joyful atmosphere;
2. Part of the fun was that some things went so wrong (bad organization – poor sound, poor speakers – beginner singers for example), that we, from time to time, laughed at them; That wasn’t that good; For example, one singer (we had those, yes), had a piece of paper with the lyrics; All-in-all I learned just a few things in there;
__________________
Bottom line: lots of fun event, with little things to learn with the brain.

The speakers in the picture below, are, in this order:
1. Anca PODOLEANU (Choice Consulting Ltd );
2. Oliver OLSON (CEU Business School);
3. Camelia SLIVNEANU (Coca Cola HBC );
4. Florin MIULESCU (FPSE Bucharest);
5. Sabina BICA (Chipita Romania);
6. Ioana MOHOLEA (Perspective Group);
7. Liliana BOLAN (B&B Expert Com);
8. Cristina MIHAI (freelancer);

“

What I liked about the event?
1. I met new people;
2. I got to see again some old colleagues from a previous edition of the summer school;
3. Seeing some past speakers was also nice;
4. The audience was involved, right about everybody got the chance to say a few words.

All in all, a nice event to take part to.

Some pictures at the event:

A. The first part of the conference

1. “New strategies of development in the context of crisis” (PPT) – Daniel ENESCU, General Director for Daedalus Group
How does the behavior when buying changes?
1. Before vs. After:
a. experimenting (try new things) vs. making a sure choice (certainty);
b. more is better (never ask if you really need it) vs. lesser and better;
c. I spoil myself (an attitude) vs. I take care of others (family, responsibilities);
d. luxury (not necessarily luxury products, but premium brands) is a trend vs. “eco” is the new luxury (recycling);
e. I replace (with new items) vs. I fix;
f. my resources are infinite (continuous growth) vs. my resources are finite (these are extremes);
g. I do shopping vs. choosing is stressful;
h. I am on my own vs. I decide with my family.

I gave up to some products, or stopped experimenting (see carbonated water, coffee), or look for cheaper alternatives (sunflower oil). There is a tendency to stop consuming juice.

A person out of four frequently buys products that are on sales / promotions.

A vast majority read the advertisements in magazines.

Discounts, promotions, prices – they all matter more in the buying process. There is an equilibrium point, which represents the value of the brand (”how much I pay is how much the product is really worth”).

A lot of the decisions are taken at the shelves.

2. “Revitalization of electronics and home appliances” (PPT) – Dragos SIMION, President of Flamingo International
The sales costs had to be adjusted.
We had to optimize the working capital, postpone expanding plans and some investments, reduce the number of suppliers and prioritize among them, close non-performing stores, close small size stores, focus on large size stores.

3. “Reducing operational costs by automating bill processing” (PPT) – Theodor DUMBRAVA, Business Process Services Manager, Xerox Romania and Republic of Moldova
An idea to take home: You can reduce costs by providing a bonus: if a buyer of yours pays its bill within 10 days, he gets a 2 percent bonus, which is larger than any bank interest.
If a bill is processed entirely manually, the cost per one bill can be up to 50 dollars.

4. “How to have a lot of clients in the malls yet again?” (PPT) – Razvan GHEORGHE, General Manager Cushmann & Wakefield

B. The second part focused on 10 marketing solutions for increased sales:

1. “The story of a client with fidelity or how to sell with fidelity?” (PDF) – Radu SCHMITZER, Sales Director Linea Directa Communications
I liked this quote:
“The main goal of the business is not simply making money but creating clients …” (Peter DRUCKER)

This was fine also:
“Business’ aim must be creating and retaining the clients” (Theodore LEVITT, Harvard Business School)

All that a customer wants is really related to:
a. Relevant information;
b. A pleasant experience in the store;
c. Easy methods to buy things;

68% of the clients (I’m not sure if in Romania or worldwide) are brand switchers. Only 5% are loyal to a certain brand.

73% of the clients us at least 5 different information channels prior to buying a product.

26% of the clients only buy from one retailer (universal store, web site, kiosk, gas station).

Target of the retails store: the consumers in shopping mode (set to buy something).

70% of the decisions to buy products are done at the shelves.

In-store activities:
a. selecting and positioning products;
b. environment within the store;
c. conversations between the buyer and the sellers.

Who are the clients that are appropriate to your business? Find out their name, where they live, why have they bought, what do they need

2. “Marketing solutions for increasing sales” (PPT) – Marius LUCIAN, General Manager Reveal Marketing Research
Big errors:
a. giving up premium brands;
b. altering the image of premium brands (see the solution of Vodafone, who tackles the problem of price with no cuts, but by making sure the clients know exactly how much they pay).

You should keep the premium brands intact.

Put more emphasis on the shelf presence. There is a discrepancy between what the marketer sets as guidelines within an office, and the reality at the store level.

There is an error in trying to be “The cheapest price” for a highly competitive market. On any market it can’t be the same positioning for any brand.

The smallest price is an added value which is not believed by the market.

What is tricky in trying to advertise a promotional price for only one product out of the whole range of products a supermarket has?
a. The product must be physically present in the store (there is not always on stock);
b. The promotional price must be sustained on all the products in the store, not only on that specific product (this never happens).

3. “Marketing solutions for increasing sales – Retail as brand” (PPT) – Mona OPRAN, Managing Director Saatchi & Saatchi
65% of all buyers are not conditioned by the price.

In 84% of the cases, the brand can make the difference if a product is bought in favor of another one.

Treating the store as a brand can be a solution for:
a. Loyalty of the buyers;
b. Increasing the shopping list;
c. Increasing the value of own brands (in-store brands);
d. Increasing market share.

You can have yoga classes in a sports article store.

Make:
a. Your clients;
b. Your employees;
c. Yourself;
say: “I love my store”.

4. “Blue Ocean Strategy” (PPT) – Eusediu MARGASOIU, Managing Partner The Network
You have two main options:
a. Fight within the limits of your ocean and fight the competition (blood bath = red ocean);
b. Jump from a market with fierce competition into another market.

This is The Blue Ocean Strategy:

What I’d do better had I organized the conference?
a. I’d start the conference at the scheduled time;
b. I’d make sure that the PowerPoint presentations are on the laptop one day prior to the event;
c. I’d have a quick look at the PowerPoint presentations and see if there are any small-sized fonts in them (I personally had problem with this);
d. Do a prior instruction of the speaker on the microphone and pointer;
e. I’d make sure the speakers don’t promote their own business with more than a small reference;
f. On the footer of Retail360 web page, there are a few error messages:”Antreprenor360: No Feed Key Found, Cariere360: No Feed Key Found”, etc.;
g. I would allow some presentation to take a little longer, if needed.

____________
Bottom line: All-in-all, a great conference to take part to, lots of things to learn in there.

I’ll give in this blog post some tips on event organizing (mostly for conferences and such):
1. The very first tip I’d give is picking speakers the audience doesn’t know that well; Pick some strangers to speak for your conference; I know, that’s a tricky part (how can you trust them? why would the audience pay to see some strangers), but I personally would much rather see a surprising new face, rather than see the same circle of people, again and again, at all the conferences I go; You can only do something wrong if you don’t try;
2. The next tip is making sure the participants at the conference speak about a subject that’s a matter of interest to the audience; This is part of your task; Hard to do, but do make sure that the speaker’s presentation will focus little on what is kindly called “case study” and what it is in most cases self-advertising; You can approach the subject up front, you can set a rigid presentation theme, you can ask for the PowerPoint to be sent prior to the conference for a check-up; Rarely have I seen a self-advertising presentation that is even remotely interesting; Make sure that this doesn’t happen to your event, or you might have some unhappy clients;
3. A nice presentation tip would be involving the audience; A simple raise of hands would wake a lot of people; Go for some resource-giving questions (What would you say are the best ideas for doing X?) and you get some more people to be attentive; Finally, provoke them do a hard-talk dialogue and you might conquer the world of presentations; You can have the audience put a lot of questions to the speakers (have a rather long time of time allowed to questions); You can also have moderators of panel discussions put questions to the speakers; But all-in-all, you should make sure that the trainers at a conference really do involve the audience;
4. How to pick a speaker? I think a good speaker has some qualities like:
a. Good structure of information (he should know things for himself);
b. Provides you with insights (not only does he say stuff, this stuff make my mind go right);
c. Makes you feel good (even laugh; great way to learn things; beautiful state of mind);
d. Involves you (I’m not here to sleep, I’m here to dance!);
e. Provokes you (makes you blush);
f. Say new things (I want to hear something I don’t already know; give me new stuff, I can read old stuff in books);
g. Take you out of the comfort zone (by first going there himself; you shouldn’t feel all that comforting at a conference);
It’s not an easy-to-find kind of speaker, but these are some basic criteria; Find a trainer with as many qualities out of these as you can;
5. Prior to getting a speaker to a conference, I think it’s best to:
a. See him doing another presentation, live or via electronic means;
b. See him live, have a friendly chat with him (while you observe his personal skills);
c. Hearing him doing a presentation on the phone (on the Internet, via a web cam, would be better);
d. Get outside review (ask others, search the Internet, get peer review);
Some of the things above are harder to implement, some of these are easier; But I’d really avoid having a speaker at a conference and knowing little to nothing on him;
6. Be there for the participants; Rarely this thing doesn’t happen, but you have to make sure that at any moment at a conference there is a person from the organizers watching things over; Just a tip to make sure you remember this rule;
7. Regarding food: Solve frustrations with fast-consuming foods by replacing food as soon as it gets hard to find (so rather than having a long lists of foods, and some get eaten very fast, I think it’s better to have a smaller list of foods, that are easy to replace with new foods of the same type; this is not an universal law, but it might be frustrating to talk to someone only to find that there are only some not-that-great-looking sandwiches left);
8. Regarding promoting of the event:
a. Have a web site of the event; Do Search Engine Optimization to that web site;
b. Promote your event via press releases; Press loves this kind of thing!
c. Have a promotion in the social networks of your participants (these are highly dependable on the types of audience you have; but all-in-all, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Xing – Germany mostly, Cirip – Romania mostly, might be good ideas for your promotion; You can see a list of social networks on Wikipedia)
d. Promote your conference into relevant mailing lists; Visit Google Groups and Yahoo! Groups homepages and search for keywords related to your event target group; Promote your conference in there, with care with the general atmosphere in the group (if it’s discussion-only, you might be unwelcomed with a purely informative message; Adjust your speech to the specific audience of a group; Read 10-20 recent messages on the group to have a glimpse on what’s it about);
e. Ask for help; Bloggers, business partners, press – all can provide you with help on promoting the event; Ask for help! They can do anything from writing about you, placing a banner to your web site, send information to friends to participating themselves;
f. Have a fresh thinking! A lot of people would like to see a YouTube video with your event, see a virtual map of the address of the conference, see videos with the speakers, see a list with people that participate to the event, receive a participation diploma from the event, receive a gift at the event; Learn to attract people, to motivate them;
9. Do Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) – This might involve giving some invitations to the event or donating part of the money obtained on the event; You can offer scholarships to participate to your event; You can sponsor some persons to accommodate at a hotel; Think creative! And you can promote your ability to do CSR; It’s the right thing to do;
10. Thank the speakers for holding speeches at your event; You might even offer them gifts, flowers or at least offer transportation; Also thank the participants to the conference by sending them a postcard or two with a great picture at the event; This should be memorable;
11. If your conference is an all-day event, it might be a good idea to offer your participants information on other events that take part in the same day, prior to leaving your event; So, let’s say your conference ends at 18:30 and there’s another event at 19, an event on 20, another one at 21; Be a kind host and give alternatives to your guests for the evening; You can also give information on where to accommodate for the night prior and after the event;
12. Pick the right day for the conference: Monday is great, Friday is less-than-great; Think of a day and period of time in which it would be easy to get a day off (if there’s a day celebrating women in March, it might be a good idea to organize a conference in a period of time that is close to that event); Friday may be bad due to the closeness to week-end (and at the end of the week there’s always something to do); On the other hand, very few people plan for the next Monday to do something;
13. In order to keep a tight schedule, you can set a time for registration: so registration to begin at 9:30 AM, while the conference to start at 10 AM; And keep the schedule; Rarely does a conference announced to start at 10 AM really starts at 10 AM sharp;
14. How to get great speakers? Ask for recommendations; Ask the participants to give you hints on who should participate at the next event;
15. I think it would be alright if the speakers had a training themselves: how to operate the microphone, how to get to the next slide, how to use the pointer to show something on the screen; Even some soft skills training might be good (involve the audience); Talk to your speakers and give them a few hints;
16. The most important thing at a training are the trainers themselves: the hotel, location, food, materials, organizers – I personally can live with lesser quality of any of these; A great speaker, who should give me both emotions (make me laugh, annoy me, make me happy) and also provide me with insights (not just learn things, discover them myself) would be great; And at the end of the day, I should take some good memories with me (on emotional and practical part);
17. Try to pick a location that is accessible via more than one way (not only by car, but also by Metro or bus or tram; Think of multiple audience of your conference); Prior to the event, when sending an invitation, also send a map with the great locations near your event; It might impress people in a good way;
18. Make sure that there’s not another great event in that very day with yours; I would hate to have to pick between two great conferences;
19. Ask for volunteers to come and help organize the event in a great way; There are a lot of people who want to get involved and you only need a lot help in the days prior to the event itself and in that very day;
20. What happens when all things are set? I think an evaluation should exist on the following levels:
a. Training contents and structure;
b. Level of “I was touched” (laughed, annoyed, intrigued);
c. Level of “I got an insight” (I learned this and that, I discovered new things);
d. Level of “I applied what I learned” afterwards;
e. Level of “I could keep my attention focused on the things the trainer said and I understood his message right”;
f. How well did the trainer go as a body language?
g. How much did I trust the trainer came in the room to help me?
h. How much did the trainer involve me?
i. How was the event organized;
j. Was it worth coming to the event? (both on time, money and things applied)
Evaluation should be done, in my opinion, after a longer period of time: 6 months, 9 months; Do this and you’ll get some participants the next year.

What do you think about my message?

Warning: long post ahead.

How can I write about a careful planned event without giving all the details? Find out my solution, divided this way:
1. Why am I biased when I make this evaluation?
2. A personal case study: how was the conference for me?
3. Analysis of a conference in quite a few questions:

a. How were the speakers?
b. What speakers I like best?
c. How was networking (a personal case study)?
d. How was the timing of schedule?
e. How was the food?
f. How was the location?
g. How were the banners?
h. What have I learned?
i. How were the Marriott employees?
j. How was the web site of the conference?
k. How were the materials given at the conference?
l. How were the speakers thanked for?
m. How was the technical part?
n. How were the helping people of HR Club?
o. How was the timing of the conference as two days in the year?
p. How was the audience?
q. How was Corporate Social Responsibility?
r. How was the main organizer of the event, Carmen CUCUL?

Note: “HR” means “Human Resources”.

1. Why am I biased when I make this evaluation?
The reasons for me to be biased when making this evaluation include:
a. For quite a few years, I’ve been a colleague in LEADERS Romania with the current Executive Director of HR Club, Carmen CUCUL; Actually, when I first visited LEADERS Romania for the initial interview, Carmen CUCUL was just being interviewed by LEADERS’ CEO; And we were colleagues in LEADERS for quite a few years and worked on projects; For me, it was a fun experience
b. I was part of the HR Club Summer School of 2008 and made a few friends (from my part) with participants and organizers;
c. In the day of the evaluation I was in a very tiring state of mind: I’ve only slept 5 hours the night before and I felt a bit dizzy; While this may sound awkward, this might also have helped me notice things differently in a good way; I’m much more attentive to details in such states of mind;
d. I helped organizing the conference, so it was a little bit of personal involvement in there (how can I say about my work not being perfect? I actually can, but I may be biased when saying it was so nice).

2. A personal case study: how was the conference for me?
Exactly three weeks prior to the conference, I contact the one person I knew best in HR Club: Carmen CUCUL. My e-mail contained an offer (to help), and a request (to participate to the conference). Carmen CUCUL was very gallant, and allowed me to help them out.

Then a nice thing happens: HR Club gave 5 invitations to prior generations of graduates of HR Club Summer School. I’ve been a member of a Summer School in 2008. The value of the classes was high (very good speakers, great locations), while the cost for the participants was low (actually it was free for those to be admitted). And now, in a time of crisis, HR Club does a beautiful thing and invites 5 HR Club Summer School participants to join a great event for free. Now that’s a very good Corporate Social Responsibility and all done in silence (no advertisment for this).

Time passes. Three days prior to the conference, I send another email to get an update on how can I help. I’m informed by Alexandra Aignatoaie, Project Manager within HR Club, when and how I should come and help them out.

Time passes again. It’s 11th of March, the end of the first day of the seminars, and the evening prior to the conference. It’s 6 PM sharp and I’m at Marriott to help the girls (from HR Club and external people) organizing the room. Basically, I helped caring about two hundred bags from the middle of a large room to the margins. This took about one and a half hours. There were quite a few people (girls, actually) helping organizing the thing, and everyone was helping. At the end of the session (after leaving a bit earlier to go see a movie) I was informed I should be there tomorrow at 6:30 – 7:00 AM.

Due to some unexpected events in that evening (such as a movie with a friend and a discussion with a client of mine), by midnight I was still awake. The next day, at 5:20 AM I was up & running, and at 6:30 AM I was, once again, at Marriott.

Who do you expect was, in the day of the event, at 6:30 AM, at the Marriott hotel? All of the HR Club members involved in the project and a few outside people (more to come in a few dozens of minutes). I was really impressed of the effort required to be at the hotel both in the evening prior to the event and in the morning. For me, sleeping 5 hours that night meant sleeping 12 hours the next day. For the organizers, it was somehow natural.

I helped out the conference a bit more (you may notice the emphasis I put on my own work): arranging some banners, giving some not-asked-for-but-still-welcome pieces of advice. From about 8 AM to 8:30 AM I helped welcoming the guests, and then I went to buy some stuff for the organizers (I even negotiated the price and got 20% off). From 9 AM, when I was back from the city, until 9:30 AM I went outside the hotel to fix a personal thing, then all day I’ve been at the event. Now you know the conference background. Here comes the great stuff: Analysis of a conference via some questions.

3. Analysis of a conference in quite a few questions:
a. How were the speakers?
First of all, let me tell you how a typical conference goes: you get to see some speakers live.

There are two options with speakers at a conference: you either know them (you’ve seen them before) or you don’t (oh, goodies!, new faces). As you can imagine, it’s very good to have fresh people at a conference.

That’s a first classification. Another classification I make is regarding the type of speech they hold. Some speakers try to be fairly interesting, they prepare a speech, they do a bit of a research, while other speakers come and speak about their company (sometimes this thing is masked as a “Case study”, which is quite a beautiful name for blunt self-advertising).

Yet another classification from my part is the degree in which the person can keep you attentive. This is easy to be done by free speech, flexing the voice, involving the public, having great body language and other things that make great orators great. Oh yes, and making things funny and laughable does help a lot. How do organizers get into this picture? The organizers have either seen the speakers prior to the conference (this means there’s a high chance of the participants knowing the conference), or they haven’t seen them before (which means they may be poor speakers).

As you can imagine, the best type of speaker is that who you haven’t met before, a speaker that doesn’t speak about its company to try and “sell” it to you, and finally a person that can make you attentive while they speak (as said, laughing is great for this).

Now getting back to the HR Club’s Strategy Conference in Human Resources, I’ll tell you how they made a great success out of these requirements and how they can improve.

First of all, let’s have a look at the speakers in the panel:

• Dr. Lisbeth CLAUS, Ph.D., SPHR, GPHR, Professor of Global HR, Willamette University, USA;
• Anca Georgescu ALADGEM, Chief Human Resources Officer, Romtelecom;
• Brent W. MATTSON, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Learning & Development Executive, Enterprise Learning & Talent Management, Bank of America;
• Dave ULRICH, Partner and co-founder The RBL Group and Professor of Business – Ross School of Business, University of Michigan;
• Radu PANAIT, HR Vice-President, Ursus Breweries Romania.

There are just two persons from Romania in that list. The conference had three parts:
a. First half in the morning (various speakers, half of them from Romania);
b. Second half in the morning and first half in the afternoon (Dave Ulrich);
c. Second half in the afternoon (one Romanian speaker and two foreign persons).

As you can imagine, I’ve only seen before this conference the moderator (Csaba GERGELY, president of HR Club). That’s it. All of the non-Romanian people were unknown even by name. So, the very first good thing about the HR Club organization was picking up people from other countries (sure way to make sure they are not known).

That was point one. Point two: Choosing people from other countries was also good for the self-promotion part. While the Willamette University, Bank of America, Ross School of Business, Willamette University may be well known in the US, speaking about them in Romania is quite futile. The speakers had no incentive to self-promote their companies and institutions, their target audience was really not interested. You genuinely had to speak about something else about your company (also, some of these companies and institutions may be well unheard of in Romania).

Another great trick? In the very first part of the day, when there were a few Romanians speaking, the moderator gave them the following task: answer to this question. There was no presentation involved, each speaker had to answer the questions. How can I, a Romanian speaker, promote my company when I have to answer a specific question? It’s quite tricky. Great solution by HR Club.

Yet another trick? In the first half of the morning they’ve brought the speakers to answer questions. In the second half of the afternoon, all of the US-based speakers held a presentation. They’ve used the speakers quite a lot, I can say. Since they’re already there, why not use the maximum potential? Good stuff!

The thing on which HR Club did poorly was picking boring speakers. How can you tell, prior to the conference, if the speaker is boring or not?

i. See him live (harder for those in the US, I’d say);
ii. Hear them talking on a subject on the phone for 5 minutes (it is disturbing to tell them in-their-face that they are being monitored for speaking fine, and if they don’t speak fine they won’t get picked, but it is one solution; you also can’t see body language on the phone);
iii. Find other people’s opinion on them (this might be people who attended their conferences and posted on a blog or forum, like I do it in here).

This is one point where HR Club didn’t do so well. Sure, this is only a one out of three requirement, and I must say that finding an unknown speaker, who won’t talk about his own company and won’t bore you. And repeat this procedure for all the speakers. Two out of three is fine enough.

b. What speakers I like best?
i. Dave ULRICH gave me the best insights. It made me think on different thing, and learned a few things. In the 12th of March 2009 I had two opportunities: either to attend a conference by LEADERS organization with Jim BAGNOLA, or to see the HR Club conference. In any given day, I’d go to see Jim BAGNOLA. Great speaker, best trainer I’ve ever seen (I’ll have a blog post on him sometimes in the following months I hope). He’s just perfect. On this blog I’ve also written about Nigel RISNER (I knew him at yet another HR Club conference; he was the last speaker of the day, not that many people in the room; You can see that for the 2009 event, HR Club put Dave ULRICH right in the middle – not the first, not the last; They do learn!). Nigel RISNER was speaker also, he and Jim BAGNOLA were great choices for a conference day. But the thing is, I prefer seeing a less-than-perfect speaker talking to me, rather than just see the perfect speaker again and again. Sure, in a normal day I’d go see Jim BAGNOLA and Nigel RISNER. But in that very special day of 12th of March, I’d love to see Dave ULRICH more than anyone else. David ULRICH knew all the tricks in the book. He knew he should listen, he knew he should make fun of things (even of himself), he was fast to reply, he used some basic tipically affirmations (“that’s a great question”), he had good body language, he engaged the room, he put a lot of questions, he repeated thing, he made pauses after saying something to be remembered. This blog post is not about what he didn’t do good. Enough to say that although he knew all these things, the end result was not as good. But, at the end of the day, it was more useful for me to understand why he didn’t do good (and I won’t tell you that), than to see yet another perfect seminar by Jim BAGNOLA, or a provocative workshop with Nigel RISNER. I learned a lot of things from faults, more than from (previously seen) perfect behavior. And he had a good enaging spirit, kept me awake (very important) the whole day. Not bad, quite a good speaker all-in-all, with all his faults.

ii. Florin TALPES was another speaker at the conference. He was only present in the first half of the morning. Very smart, good answers, logical and lovely to hear. His strong point? Analytical skills. Great ideas to learn from him.

iii. But the speaker I liked most at this conference wasn’t present with his name in any of the speakers’ lists. He was serious, no joke when he held his speech. He had a less-than-one-minute speech, which he started with “I am not a HR person”. In that one minute, he made two affirmations which made my mouth drop:
a. (approximate understanding by me) We will launch a HR Software solution for the US market;
b. (approximate understanding by me) Within companies with a turnover of a range from millions to billions USD, we wish to hire CEOs and CFOs. All of these positions come with no special MBA required.

The affirmations (or at least how I understood) were made by Eric KISH (VP Retail The Rompetrol Group). It made me wish to include him on this blog with a dedicated blog post.

What have I learned from Eric KISH? In his one minute of speaking it made me understand that the MBA has some value (he said exactly the opposite thing, but, nevertheless, it made me wonder).

c. How was networking (a personal case study)?
When I came into the conference room at 9:30 the conference already begun. Most of the seats were taken. I waited for the speaker to end his presentation, and while presenting the next speaker I went at the very first table in the room. At that table I knew two persons, and I previously spoke with another. There were three other persons at the table. With two of them I had a talk by the end of the conference, and the other one suggested that I should speak for the whole group when requested so in some sort of a game.

When I was in the Summer School at HR Club, I had three colleagues in a mini-group, other than the whole group of participants. All of my colleagues in the mini group were there, plus another one from that promotion (my group was very engaged, it seems).

As you might expect, I talked with other people at the conference.

The best place for networking was a place I’d hate to be in any other circumstance: the smoking place. In Marriott hotel there was a special room dedicated to smoking. Good connections made in there, it’s easier to speak with a person in there.

The schedule for pauses was kept tightly, so there was plenty of room for networking.

d. How was the timing of schedule?
I’m sorry, but I didn’t quite monitor this. I was late from the beginning, and I didn’t quite care about the other points in the program. I can say that the schedule wasn’t followed to the last minute, but the time for breaks was followed, and everything else was thus fine by me.

Good learning experience meant I cared less about timing.

e. How was the food?
In general, at a conference you get to see this kind of food arranging: a wider or smaller group of foods, with a finite quantity. In the first 15-30 minutes of serving the food, the best foods are over, and the people coming late get to eat the remaining (not-so-good food).

Here comes a great solution from HR Club: there was a reasonable amount of variety of foods (pasta, veggies, potatoes, fish, chicken). All these 5 (or around so) foods were doubled: each side of the table contained these exact foods. You may think that the fish and chicken ended first and the problem was not solved. Well, not quite. The food was replaced by the Marriott personnel (I saw this myself), and 40 minutes after initial serving, you could still have the same food. The sweets and cookies were varied and at the same time a lot. Plenty of sweets to choose from, great quality.

All day the were: three types of ice tea, coffee (and of course accessories like milk and sugar), and three types of Pepsi-brand drinks (Mirinda, two types of Pepsi, 7UP), two kinds of water (whatever that may mean – still and carbonated).

In the first break of the day and in the very morning you could also have some three kinds of croissant (this is Marriott-specific and in my opinion it is the worst food for the whole day, I didn’t like it at all).

But all-in-all good food, good drinks, and not-really-that-bad croissants.

f. How was the location?
Well, it’s Marriott. I’ve worked for almost one and a half year at a company 5 minutes away from Marriott and I can say it’s quite easy to get there by any means (with the caution that the automobile and bus traffic in the morning can be a problem in Bucharest). But considering it’s a 15 minutes walk by foot from the subway (and my-oh-my, it’s passing right from a nearby park), it’s a fairly well chosen location.

The size of the conference room was enormous, not too many locations in Bucharest can accommodate more than 200 people. Go Marriott!

Oh, and the speakers’ positioning was great. The room was a rectangle. You had two options: putting the speakers at the middle of the very long or of the very short side of the rectangle. HR Club chose well. The speakers were placed at the middle of the long rectangle, I think it’s the best solution. Go HR Club, too!

g. How were the banners?
If I hadn’t help organized the event, I wouldn’t even have noticed this aspect. At one time, when I was outside the room I had nothing to do and I’ve read some things on a banner. I also saw, during the conference, the main banner of HR Club, with all the sponsors and partners. And the massage-giving team was hidden by a banner and a flower (I knew this from the morning). That was it. I never noticed any of the other banners.

I’d say that the banners were zero-obtursive to the participants at the conference: besides the main banner behind the speakers, during the conference my eyes were free to watch everything. Very warm and cool atmosphere. And while outside, I was generally too busy talking to people, rather to watch a banner.

h. What have I learned?
First of all, I learned, from a person giving me a delicate 10-15 minutes massage (even at the fingers), that I have no obvious back problem. That’s useful for you to know, wouldn’t you agree?

The conference also made me realize I have to make my SEO blog much faster.

I’ve also learned that a good question to help understand women is: “How are you feeling today?”. Ladies will feel they are understood.

For a more serious approach to what I’ve learned on HR strategy, see this (summarized, I promise!) blog post of mine: What have I learned at the Strategy Conference in Human Resources in the spring of 2009?.

i. How were the Marriott employees?
I had these four experiences:
a. After a night of a 5 hours sleep, in the morning, I saw a Marriott employee putting a sign on the door saying details about the conference; I was very intrigued (my mind always is after such a night) about how does this work; And my “be reasonable, act cool” pattern of thinking is very sound asleep, I opened the thing holding the paper; Naturally, the piece of paper with conference details fell on the floor and I tried to put it back; The Marriott employee saw this and, with a smile on her face, offered to help me; So, it went very Ok; That person always smiled that day and helped us out; Great employee!
b. I go to one waitress: “Where is the post office?”, I ask; “I don’t know”, she says; If you were expecting a follow-up to this, well, there wasn’t any; She just didn’t know; But, I might add, she could have helped me find out in other ways (asking, phoning, giving me directions); Well, she could;
c. I go to another waitress (I never learn): “Where is the post office?”, I ask (if you wonder how come, after working one and a half years in the area, I didn’t know where the Post office was, well, it’s memory issue, doubled by, you’re right!, lack of sleep); “Right across the street”, she says; “I know that there’s a Romtelecom office”, I insist, “is there a post office there too?”; “I don’t know, ask the doorman”; Now, if she didn’t know, why did she answer in the first place? I went there and there was no postal office, just Romtelecom;
d. I go to a helping young man from Marriott; “Can you help us put a sign at the entrance of Marriott, so that the people know where the conference is held?”, I ask; “Well, there’s a list of events in the lobby, and the rooms have clear signs”, he said in a not-that-happy voice; So much for help;

All-in-all I was amazed by the always smiling Marriott employee, a great person. But the overall attitude of Marriott persons was not great.

j. How was the web site of the conference?
You can see it right here: http://strategyconference.hr-club.ro/

Sure, my SEO eyes tell me at least the titles of the page should be unique, the black background is not a great choice for reading, the use of a subdomain doesn’t bring that much of a value to HR Club, a microsite or a subfolder was to be preferred, some speakers were not on schedule, after the conference ended there was no news on the web site, no follow-up, the conference specifies two days, but it’s actually a one-day conference preceded by a seminar, the emails on the contact page are not clickable, but it’s a decent website.

It shows all the required information, the sponsors’ banners have working links on them, the information is well structured, and the visual impact is good.

It’s a fairly decent web site.

k. How were the materials given at the conference?
Basically, I got two pens, two writing pads, a program schedule, an English book by the keynote speaker, and … ta-da! a working, great looking, women’s watch. My parents in Navodari couldn’t believe they such give free watches to conferences (my father was in Bucharest these days, he went home today).

Let’s just say that at the end of the day no one at my table left its bag with goodies at the table.

l. How were the speakers thanked for?
This is special. Besides Csaba GERGELY encouraging people to applaud whenever necessary, each speaker got a cute prize and a diploma. The women speakers got a very-well-picked-at-a-great-negotiated-price (so I’ve been told) bouquet of flowers.

I have yet to see such things at a conference. Sure, some speakers get paid (while others compensate by promoting their business), but this atmosphere was lovely and cute, in such a way that I’ve never seen speakers treated more nicely than at this conference.

m. How was the technical part?
The HR Club’s little helpers made the “get this microphone here” action very pleasant. There were two projectors, so you could see the presentation from both sides of the large conference room. There was a movie by HR Club that went smoothly, while the presentations went fine. All quiet on the technical front.

n. How were the helping people of HR Club?
At the reception desk there was literally an army of people welcoming guests. At most of the time, in the morning, there were 3 people who only gave the participants the instructions, one writing badges for people not on the list, and from time to time there were HR Club members checking things out and helping.

All day there was always someone at the reception desk and the microphones were flying during the conference.

Oh, a bonus: when the helping people asked people to join the conference, they were all smiling, put little pressure, and somehow they manage not to force things. It all went natural, I never felt that if I will be a bit late, this will be very bad. But since everyone went into the rooms, no real pushing was necessary. A very gentle way to handle the situation, I can say.

Regarding my personal experience as an organizer, the HR Club persons listened to all my surely-not-that-good advices. The helping people were smarter than that, and listened to none. This might also be due to my poorly way of explaining things.

o. How was the timing of the conference as two days in the year?
Well, they’ve put in the same day with a conference with Jim BAGNOLA, so it must have been bad. Kidding, an event like this is planned months ahead, you can’t tell what other events may be. As a positive side, in that evening there was a MBAs, graduate, and post-graduate education fair at the Intercontinental Hotel (if only HR Club announced the participants about this event). But if you were informed you had a pleasant option for the evening.

Coming back to the strategy conference, spring (alongside with autumn) is a typical period of time for conferences, it came right in a week after the Woman’s day on 8th of March, so bosses could have felt generous with women employees leaving for a day. (if they bring a watch in return)

p. How was the audience?
They laughed and they interacted pretty Ok. I must say I expected much more interactions, more questions, more vivid implications, but all-in-all it was a decent interaction for a typical group of persons. I had more expectations from a group of HR people, but that’s life.

q. How was Corporate Social Responsibility?
HR Club allowed five members of two HR Summer School to come at the conference. I couldn’t have done it any better.

r. How was the main organizer of the event, Carmen CUCUL?
Let’s say it’s 8 AM, and you’re already at Marriott way before 6:30 AM. You need to check the sound system. And check it. And still test it until everything is fine. At 8 AM people start arriving at the conference. And they come. And they come. And Carmen CUCUL has two options: letting people wait outside the room, in the lobby, or letting them in. And then she does a beautiful thing: she lets them out. The logic? “Instead of letting you in and making you hear bad sounds due to testing the equipment, we prefer to let you wait outside until we solve our problems”. Wonderful thinking, thanks for the tip. Good to know in the future.

In the morning she was worried, she checked things, but she still laughed at my try-to-be-funny-and-didn’t-quite-make-it jokes. At the conference she was always smiling, and helping.

And while I went in the very first row, she sat in the back, to check that everybody’s fine. And she never held a speech, although the main organizer.

Nice people in LEADERS and HR Club, wouldn’t you say?

______________
Bottom line: I’ve never seen an event of similar proportions organized so well. Sure, there were faults, there were things to be done better, but the event organization was great. My congratulations, HR Club!

How do you feel about this blog post? Leave a blog comment below. I’m more than happy to reply.

Still, these are the things I noted as important:
1. (a very well arrived reminder) In getting business solutions, you should first know how to listen to the other party;
2. How to make someone change its actions (whatever that may mean):

a. Why doens’t that person change? (ask)
b. How can you involve that person to wish, for herself to change?

3. The best example leadership on Earth: building the pyramids;
4. In a time of crisis, HR should take care of:

a. Reducing costs (including salaries);
b. Reducing personnel;

in a responsible manner;
5. It’s still not too late to take proactive measures regarding the crisis;
6. Profit is King, cash is King-Kong;
7. You can have the qualities of a leader, but still not have leadership (no followers);
8. Rather than bluntly reducing one specific thing with X percent, you should optimize a process, you can get better results in such a way (analyze procedures, and work on them; the price cuts may have no relation with the current performance of a process; look carefully at the process and work on that);
9. If you have a bad working person in an organization, it’s better both for your company (for obvious reasons – reduce losses) and for him to leave the company earlier; Why is it better for him? Simple: if he will leave 6 months later, in a full-manifesting crisis, he will be unprepared, and it will be hugely difficult for him to get a job at that time; Until then, he can prepare; Help him get a better job in a not-so-bad time by firing him earlier;
10. HR people should be 25% of their time on the field, talking to people;
11. Think at any task in three areas: from a tactic => to a strategy => to a context; e.g.: I can do a training (that’s a tactic), which will make the team reach it’s objectives better (that’s a strategy), which in turn will help the company and industry perform better (context);
12. In five years’ time, 80% of what HR people do today will no longer be doing; Learn to adapt.

Some of the speakers saying these were the following:

• Dr. Lisbeth CLAUS, Ph.D., SPHR, GPHR, Professor of Global HR, Willamette University, USA;
• Anca Georgescu ALADGEM, Chief Human Resources Officer, Romtelecom;
• Brent W. MATTSON, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Learning & Development Executive, Enterprise Learning & Talent Management, Bank of America;
• Dave ULRICH, Partner and co-founder The RBL Group and Professor of Business – Ross School of Business, University of Michigan;
• Radu PANAIT, HR Vice-President, Ursus Breweries Romania.

I was late at the very first session and I had trouble identifying who said what, and also I may have poorly understood things, so I won’t associate a thing being said with a speaker.

How was the message for you? Did it help you understand HR a bit better? You can leave a comment below.

Tendencies for 2009:
1. The online medium will make the difference in 2009; Currently active media agencies should try going digital;
2. The percentage of Interet usage for advertising will rise in 2009, because, in a time of crisis, the online medium has the highest profit-per-investment ratio;
3. The advertising company of 2009 is radically different than the same company of 1994;
4. We can expect an increase of the current penetration of mobile phone penetration in Romania (it is 123% right now);

Tendencies for the years to come, in 2009 and afterwards:
1. Using a technology called Radio-frequency identification (RFID), in the future it might be possible to interact with the objects around us; The television set, the fridge and my mobile phone might interact in the future to come;
2. The Internet connections will have an even higher penetration in all age groups;
3. The companies will put more and more emphasis on relations, not on selling things;
4. The mobile phones are the platform for communication of the future;
5. The future belongs to the Internet browsers that are integrated with desktop applications;
6. Dialogue with the client (as direct as possible) will bring more sales, but only if it will exist;

What strategies and tactics to use now to adapt to the future:
1. Right now the consumer is like a chicken, and the media agencies are like foxes; Foxes try to eat the chickens (it’s a win-lose situation), but it would be wiser if they coexisted, and we would get from the chicken the eggs to sell them (a win-win situation); You should be friend with your customer;
2. How can you rightly analyze the impact of an YouTube campaign:
a. Did it attract attention?
b. Was it forwarded?
c. Was it copied by others? (have spoofs been made?)
3. You can get very good profits from creating a very good game for your brand or by putting in-game advertising;
4. Monitor an online campaign closely to fully understand its impact;
5. Create experiences pre-sale, during sale, and most importantly: after sale! It’s being reported to be about 7 times more expensive to bring a new client than give up an old relation;
6. Use these five steps for a complete interaction with the client wishing to buy a car:
a. Collect data and have a good communication on sale (collecting data is great for a good communication);
b. After sale: verify the degree of satisfaction and cross-sell another thing (see if the person wants to personalize his car);
c. Cross-sell something to increase the life expectancy of a product (warranty);
d. Examine all of the clients’ objections and have a dialogue on this (at this time it might be angry);
e. Do buy-back & cross-selling on a higher level (sell him a brand new car);
f. Use this: an online clients costs less than an offline client;
g. Use browser cookies and authentification to learn more things about your clients;
h. Try to create a very personalized presence for a visitor of your web site: You know about each of your clients the time of the visit (you can provide a different web site in the night, different ads), its geographical location (provide information about its area), what browser does it use, what resolution has its screen (you can deduce from here that a person with a 22 inch monitor has more revenues); And for the logged-in clients, you have even more information; Use this for a very personal experience!
l. Try to create for the different interests of a client a personalized experience; Out of the 2.000 products on a web site, your visitor is interested in just a few and will only buy one; How to make him choose that? Try creating a wizard, a step-by-step guide, to make him choose wisely.

These were the speakers at the conference. I won’t tie the affirmations above with the speakers below, because I could have poorly understood the message, formulated it badly, or I could have came up with thoughts on my own:

• Alain Heureux, President, IAB Europe;
• Manuela Necula, CEO, Ogilvy Group;
• Mike Stapelfeld, Digital Director, Omnicom Media Group;
• Mihai Pricope, Platform Evangelist, Adobe Romania;
• Julian Smith, Director of Digital, Insight & Research, MEC Interaction;
• Adrian Stanescu, Country Manager, Eyeblaster;
• Dan Virtopeanu, Director General, Voxline;
• Catalin Emilian, Operations Manager, Gemius Research;
• Marius Deak, CEO, Green Pixel;
• Aurora Enghis, Manager, ARBOMobile;
• Gabriel Boaca, Sales Director, Intact Interactive;
• Adrian Alexandrescu, Managing Director & Partner, Interactions;
• Radu Ionut Munteanu, Account Executive, Carnation;
• Marius Pahomi, Interaction Business Development Manager, MEC:Interaction;
• Alex Visa, Managing Partner, Hyperactive.

I hope you find my blog post interesting enough for a small comment.

What’s this blog post about?
1. What’s the basis for comparison?
2. Who is Nigel RISNER?
3. History of events (how I’ve known him)
4. Why do I consider Nigel RISNER to be great?
5. What I’d focus on more if I were Nigel?
6. Get Nigel to motivate you!

1. What’s the basis for comparison?
In most of my college years (four in total), and while working as a freelancer (one year) I’ve been involved in a quite a large number of activities which involved public speaking (other than formal education). I have even created a mailing list dedicated to such events, where I informed my readers. I’ve been a member of two NGOs, and basically I have been always interested in hearing someone speaking. You might want to note the fact that the “trainers” category of professionals I recommend is the largest one (three persons I recommend are trainers). So I can compare Nigel RISNER with quite a few other speakers.

2. Who is Nigel RISNER?
First of all, Nigel RISNER is not only a motivational speaker, but also an author and television presenter. You can find out more about him on his web site. I especially likea nice article of Nigel’s that can be downloaded in a PDF about “Nigel’s top 10 tips for primary business champions”. Good to know.

Luckily, I can show you three live performances of Nigel in front of an audience. First, there’s a brief Ecademy Presentation. Then, there’s a larger presentation on a Ecademy Power Network Meeting (December 2006). To see it, you have to go to the members’ area, after you first register on his web site. Finally, you can view Nigel in a TV show on UK’s Channel 4 “Richard & Judy Show” (it was broadcasted in February 2004). You can see by watching his performances if what I say bellow is right or not.

3. History of events (how I’ve known him)
In October 18, 2007, at the Howard Johnson Hotel in Bucharest, HR Club (see HR Club web site) organizes a conference on “Aligned at Top: the Strategic Promise of the Human Resources”. I had the role of an observer and to be of little help to the organizers (“little” being the right word here). The day starts, the presentations keep on coming, then there’s a cool workshop, a third break. It was 6 PM, the conference day begun at 9:30 AM, and some of the persons went home. But at 6 PM it was time for Nigel RISNER’s training: “How to Create IMPACT as an HR Partner”, and those persons may have lost an opportunity.

Anyhow, in general I am not impressed by a training itself. I go to a training, I may like the way the trainer reacts (like with Jim BAGNOLA), I may like the way the trainer involves the audience (such as Ana-Maria CORLAN), but to actually like the things the trainer says – that’s rare (also rare are the first two examples). So it’s quite unusual for me to be impressed by the actual words. Nigel used in his training three things: verbal communication (it was great; I will present it below; it’s the only training I want to present from everything I’ve seen so far), motivating games (I like them all, but I won’t present any – it spoils the surprise; they are also not so motivating to me; finally, you can view some of them on the videos on his web site), and finally funny clips (I consider ads, and some funny clips to be some of the greatest things one can see on TV or sites like YouTube; but generally speaking an ad and a funny clip is not that of a great thing; I can’t say I didn’t like the clips Nigel presented, it’s just that a clip by itself is not very entertaining to me).

So Nigel starts in a very energetic way, noted that it’s a bit late and even offered tips on how to make the session shorter (so he motivated the audience in a rather unusual way – something like “Let’s keep this short, shall we?”; thus he accepted that his training may be boring to some; it takes guts to say that) .

One of the first things he said fascinated me: how long can a person pay attention? You can see this blog post of mine to understand why attention is important to me. He said that children can pay attention for 37 minutes, while adults only for 20 minutes (this should contradict the bad remark that some successful businessmen of, say, 30 have the intelligence of a 5-years-old).

He then redefined feed-back. To Nigel feed-back is not actually feed-back, but much rather a feed-forward. An observation on one’s activity should only bring the person in a better place: forward.

I noted that Nigel RISNER talked with pauses between sentences (so you have time to recap the last sentence). He put a lot of questions, to keep the awareness level high (I think).

One of the most influential affirmations on the workshop to me: you go to a conference, there are some good presenters, some bad presenters. How do you give feed-back? Is it OK to just use the feed-back form that some event organizers provide? No, it’s much better, Nigel said, to give feed-back in person. I generally considered that a speaker’s time, even after the persentation ended, is much more important than mine, so I almost never gave personal feed-back. Hey! If Nigel says it’s like this, I should do it (I think Nigel has one of the most expensive cost-per-hour of the persons I’ve met; if he’s a successful trainer, and if he says that one should give personal feed-back, then yes, I really should do it). And for the next months, at each presentation I went I gave positive feed-back (including reasons) whenever possible (I won’t wait at a long line of persons wanting to talk to you just to say you were great and why). I didn’t gave negative feed-back, because it’s hard to change anything since most of the time it can be resumed in a few words: “You are boring me” (I can give some easier-to-change motives, but still these things are not easy to be said and the results are not always for the best).

What did he focus on next? (here comes shock again) Awareness. This is yet another text of mine presenting why awareness is important to me. He noted that while everybody is in the room physically, not everybody is focused on what’s happening.

Again he says something on attention: if you write the texts in the conference (like I was doing), you are likely not to pay attention on the speech itself. This hugely challenged my previous knowledge on this: you retain just a few things while watching television, more things if you read texts, and even more things if you read texts and take notes in the same time. I tried to be aware on the “don’t take notes on conferences, just be involved” affirmation on his seminar and, to my amazement, he was right. Unfortunately, I can’t apply this knowledge to other conferences. My mind easily gets away. I do note just when interested by something, I don’t just note every word I hear.

To make things more enjoyable, he used some funny videos (as funny as a video can be – which is not that funny, to me) .

He made a quick game on awareness (very cool game).

Nigel also presented a way to handle the “I don’t know” answer. He said that if someone tells you so, you can say “If you would know the answer, what it would be?”

Then a new game on why are people afraid of acting.

At one point he says: “I’ve worked in prisons. I know some familiar faces in here.” Also a text similar to this: “After they are 12, people are responsible for their faces” (by Abraham LINCOLN, referring to people smiling). Also: “You’re either in tense, or in past tense”.

Another game was aimed on positive thinking effect on muscles.

From time to time he said “Does this make sense?”

He ended with: “When all is said and done, more is said than done”.

4. Why do I consider Nigel RISNER to be great?
1. When his presentation begun, it took him just a few seconds to get people’s attention; Everything, and I mean everything, on his training had attention-helpers: lots of questions, energetic speaking, provocative affirmations, humor, interaction, audience involvement, call for action, clips; I have yet to participate in a training where my focus was so intense; Everything else being equal, after a workshop you hold on to memories where you were most involved;
2. The subject he picked were of very high interest to me – attention, awareness, human action, positive thinking, even human resources;
3. The training took about 35 minutes. I don’t think I ever changed so many patterns of thinking in such a short time frame;
4. Good humor;
5. (related to 4.) Good logic & intelligence;
6. I left the seminar with the impression that he honestly wanted to help the people around him (due to his actions); It was not all a brand image, he actually applied what he thought was right.

5. What I’d focus on more if I were Nigel?
First of all, I want to present you a small text:
“The shaper is a task-focused leader who abounds in nervous energy, who has a high motivation to achieve and for whom winning is the name of the game. The shaper is committed to achieving ends and will ‘shape’ others into achieving the aims of the team. He or she will challenge, argue or disagree and will display aggression in the pursuit of goal achievement. Two or three shapers in a group, according to Belbin, can lead to conflict, aggravation and in-fighting.” This is from the Belbin Team Inventory page on Wikipedia. I am familiar with the characteristics of the shaper, because it best defines me.

One of Nigel RISNER’s advices (other than people should smile, which he didn’t seem to do) was to be comfortable with a state of discomfort.

I can’t say wether Nigel is a Shaper (according to the Belbin test) or not. I will say that on the single conflict in the workshop (a man didn’t like a personal joke on him), Nigel said: “Do you think I came all the way from UK to argue with you?” (so even in a conflict, he still challenged the situation). I will also say that although it was the best learning experience I’ve had, I’m not sure everybody in the room felt fine with being provoked.

So, if I were Nigel, I’d just be aware on the fact that shaping others leads to discomfort. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, just something to be aware of.

6. Get Nigel to motivate you!
On his contact page on nigelrisner.net web site, you find information like phone, email, contact form, fax and postal address.

You should first check the services page on nigelrisner.net web site, to see what Nigel can do.

What impression did this blog post left on you? Please leave a comment below.